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IMPORTED AMERICANS
[Illustration: The Real Problem]
[Illustration]
IMPORTED AMERICANS
The story of the experiences of a disguised American and his wife
studying the immigration question ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧
by
BROUGHTON BRANDENBURG
With sixty-six illustrations from photographs
by the author
[Illustration]
New York · Frederick A. Stokes Company · Publishers
Copyright, 1903, 1904,
By Frank Leslie Publishing House
Copyright, 1904,
By Frederick A. Stokes Company
This edition published in August, 1904
_This volume is dedicated to my brave little wife,
who endured with heroism conditions that, while not
unbearable for me, were superlative hardships for a
woman of delicacy and refinement._
_B. B._
_Clay Place, Mamaroneck,
June 23, 1904._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I THE IMPETUS AND THE METHOD 1
II LIFE IN A NEW YORK TENEMENT 7
III TO NAPLES IN THE STEERAGE OF THE _LAHN_ 25
IV CONDITIONS IN THE NEAPOLITAN ZONE 47
V IN THE ROMAN ZONE 61
VI IN THE HEEL AND TOE OF THE BOOT 71
VII GUALTIERI-SICAMINO AND THE SQUADRITO FAMILY 83
VIII THE SICILIAN COUNTRYSIDE 104
IX THE DEPARTURE 118
X FROM SICILY TO NAPLES 130
XI THROUGH THE CITY OF THIEVES 138
XII ROGUERY AND ILLITERACY 151
XIII THE EMBARKATION PROCESS 159
XIV THE VOYAGE 171
XV THE VOYAGE (_Continued_) 184
XVI NEARING THE GATE 198
XVII WITHIN THE PORTALS OF THE NEW WORLD 205
XVIII THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 215
XIX THE DISPERSION 228
XX THE STRUGGLES OF THE GUALTIERI BOYS IN NEW YORK 238
XXI LEGISLATION AND EVASION 246
XXII WHAT TO DO WITH THE IMMIGRANT 297
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Real Problem _Frontispiece_
The Tenement in Houston Street in which the Author
and his Wife lived (_The chimney-shadow marks their
room_) _Facing page_ 8
Mrs. Brandenburg in her wretched Tenement-room _Facing page_ 12
Life on the Steerage-passengers’ Deck on the _Lahn_ _Facing page_ 28
Preparing to Serve a Meal on the _Lahn_ from the
Food-tanks and Bread-baskets _Facing page_ 38
Peasant Types _Facing page_ 50
Mangling Hemp _Facing page_ 56
Morning in the Village and Vineyards _Facing page_ 64
Threshing Beans _Facing page_ 72
Scilla—Draught-oxen of Italy _Facing page_ 82
The Messenger—The Guide—The House of the
Squadritos—The Town (Gualtieri) _Facing page_ 90
Part of the Family gathered in the Kitchen (_From
left to right: Ina, Tono, Giovanina, Antonio, Mrs.
Squadrito, Giovanni, Jr., Nicola, Maria_)—Felicia
Pulejo—Concetta _Facing page_ 98
Visitors in the Author’s Room—Teresa di Bianca—The
Old Woman up the Valley—Shyness in Shawl and
Pattens—Small Children Labor in the Fields _Facing page_ 104
Giacomo Marini, the Municipal Secretary—Nicola
Squadrito at Work (_Carmelo Merlino at the right_) _Facing page_ 114
Ina and Her Friends in Procession to the Church for
Farewell Blessings _Facing page_ 124
DEPARTURE FROM GUALTIERI
“Declaring” in the Messina Office—Party’s Baggage on
Lighter—Friends, Neighbors and Relatives _Facing page_ 132
The Storied Vicolo del Pallonetto in Naples _Facing page_ 146
At the Doorway of the Capitaneria—Author’s Party on
the Quay _Facing page_ 162
MID-VOYAGE SCENES
Mora—Syrian Jews—Prostrated by the Swell—Children
Escaping Seasickness _Facing page_ 184
Half a Dozen Races on Common Ground—His Brothcup—The
Immigrant Madonna _Facing page_ 190
LIFE ABOARD THE _Prinzessin Irene_
Men’s Sleeping-quarters—Ladling out Food—The Purser
Hurling Passengers About—On the Fo’c’s’l-head _Facing page_ 194
Part of the Author’s Party—All Eyes to the Statue of
Liberty _Facing page_ 206
Croatians and Italians—Swedes Arriving—Loading the
Barges, New York _Facing page_ 210
Rushing Immigrants on Barges—Inspectors and
Immigrants at Ellis Island _Facing page_ 214
Stairway of Separation—Checking into Pens _Facing page_ 218
Excluded for Age—Waiting for Immigrant Friends _Facing page_ 222
The Immigrants’ Track Through Ellis Island, _Facing page_ 227
Mr. Broughton Brandenburg, as he Looked when He
Passed through Ellis Island as an Immigrant _Facing page_ 230
Stonington—The Barber-shop—The Squadrito House _Facing page_ 234
Night-porter’s Staff at Siegel-Cooper Company’s
(_Nunzio Giunta in front of post_) _Facing page_ 242
Nicola Curro at Work—Ina Americanized—Saint’s Figure,
covered with Bags of Money _Facing page_ 264
Nicola Curro Studying English in the Author’s Home in
New York _Facing page_ 280
CHAPTER I
THE IMPETUS AND THE METHOD
That there was a tremendous increase in immigration in prospect was
announced by the agents of the great immigrant-carrying lines of
steamships as early as January of 1903. All Europe seemed stirred with
that tide of unrest. It was to be a great year for the departure from
the Continental hives of the new swarms, and an authoritative foreign
journal prophesied that the sum total would be 1,500,000 for the twelve
months.
In America the cry was redoubled that the doors of the United States
should be altogether closed or rendered still more difficult to pass.
The Shattuc bill was about to find favor in the House of
Representatives, the Lodge bill was cooking in Boston, and in every
newspaper or periodical of the land articles and editorials were
appearing that attacked or defended various phases, conditions or
proposed remedies of immigration. Even in the German and Italian papers,
which speak for Germany, Austria and Italy, the most fertile
immigrant-producing grounds, there was but the barest trifle printed
that was _from the point of view of the immigrant himself_. In the
American papers there was absolutely nothing.
One day I was in the Grand Central station in New York, ready to take a
train for New Haven, and as I came up to the gate I saw, passing through
before me, a group of more than twenty newly arrived Italians, following
the leadership of one short, black, thick-set prosperous-seeming man who
spoke Italian to the left and broken English to the right. They were
tagged for Boston and other New England towns, and, bearing their heavy
burdens of luggage and bundles, with faces drawn with weariness, eyes
dull with too much gazing at the wonders of a new land, with scarce a
smile among them except on the faces of the unreasoning children, they
were herded together, counted off as they passed through the gate and
taken aboard the train, much as if they had been some sort of animals
worth more than ordinary care, instead of rational human beings. Here
they were in charge of the conductor, who grouped them in seats
according to the towns to which they were destined.
When I was seated and had unfolded my paper the first thing that caught
my eye was an article in which a noted sociologist was liberally quoted
recommending the total suspension of immigration for three years and
_then_ new laws admitting only those who would come with their families
and were trained in some work demanding skill. The arguments were
specious, but as I looked over the top of the paper at the poor
creatures huddled in the car seats about, very thinly dressed for so
cold a January day, it occurred to me that the true light, the
revelation of the natural remedies and the only real understanding of
the immigrant situation lay in seeing from the underside, in getting the
immigrants’ point of view to compare with the public-spirited American
one.
That was the leaven and it grew. The idea ramified into a plan, and this
plan was laid before Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, the editor of _Leslie’s
Monthly_, and very soon it was decided that I was to go seeking the
immigrants’ point of view and was to take my wife with me.
All of the intricacies of how, where and just what, evolved slowly, but
this in brief was our general plan: First of all we must choose the
ground for our investigation. Since Italy sends not only three times
more immigrants than any other country, but a larger proportion of the
sort that are objected to in America, it was plain that our work lay
among the Italians. We must know the language well enough to ask
questions and understand answers; we must know the conditions of Italian
life in America in order to know what good and what evil things to trace
to their sources. To understand the people properly, we must live with
them and be of them, and, to get the fullest grasp on the process of
their transmutation we must become immigrants ourselves and re-enter our
own country as strangers and aliens.
Therefore we must take up our abode in the Italian quarter, and, when
duly prepared and informed, voyage to the home land with some of the
returning Italians and, having learned the actual conditions there, come
back in the steerage and pass through Ellis Island, bringing with us
some typical immigrant family whose exact circumstances we had fully
learned in their native community. Using them as a central strand we
would weave a story of small things that should be worthy of being taken
into reckoning by thinking minds, as a new and important fund of
information.
Though we knew full well the hardships which we must endure for many
long months, the difficulties which would arise like forbidding
barriers, I am free to say that the things on which we had counted and
against which we had armed ourselves did not come to pass for the most
part; while a multitude of things happened that were as unexpected as
gold in breakfast food.
Work began at once, by the book, on the language, and while in the wilds
of Yucatan in February we were studying Italian. In March we landed in
New York late one night from the Ward liner _Monterey_, and the very
next day went into the Italian quarter seeking a place to live. When we
had been in the reeking streets, amid the tumult of innumerable
children, and had entered a few of the tenements, my wife turned pale
and sick and said:
“Don’t think I am faltering at the threshold; but, please, if we must go
through all this, let us have a week of comfort and preparation. Then we
will take the plunge.”
Thus I knew how much harder it was for her, with all her love of comfort
and her accustomedness to it, to forsake it for any purpose, however
important or worth while, than it was for me, who, manlike, enjoy “the
fare of the field, and the habit of the strange land.” And thereafter,
particularly when we were in the steerage of the _Prinzessin Irene_ and
were bound home, actually counting the half-hours of the twelve-day
voyage amid utter wretchedness, never did I hear one complaint from her
lips or did she give other sign of failing.
At the very outset we had difficulty in gaining admission to any
all-Italian house. In the tenements where several rooms were to be had,
the Italian real-estate agents eyed us with suspicion and averred
solemnly that they were all full, even to the roof. This they asserted,
notwithstanding empty apartments to be seen from the street and “Rooms
to Let” signs without number. In the boarding houses we were met with a
very cold reception even before it was known what we wanted. In the
Italian hotels it was the same way with the exception of one south of
Washington Square, and there the proprietor kindly offered to let us in
at twice the ordinary price, according to the rates tacked on the room
doors. At last, however, we came to the domicile of the Chevalier
Celestin Tonella. Here we found our haven.
It was some time after we were settled before we learned that we were
under the roof of a nobleman. If we had been familiar with the nice
distinctions of Italian caste, however, we should have known it
instantly. The three houses Nos. 141, 145, 147 West Houston Street,
entered by the door of No. 147, seemed to us very little different from
many of the other tenements in which we had been, and indeed they were
not. The difference all lay in the master not in the mansion. If I had
known before paying my rent in advance that my landlord had a title, I
should have demurred, thinking that in his house there would be life a
little too high in grade for the real Italian quarter; but before I knew
the Chevalier’s station, I had learned that we were in the proper
element and surrounded by the very atmosphere we sought, though the same
at meal times would have almost killed a strong man in his prime.
Just before we gained admittance to the desired quarters we were in the
office of a real-estate man who has an exclusively Italian custom in the
lower West Side quarter, renting to people of his own race and tongue
houses owned by wealthy people up-town. When he had refused to give us
an opportunity at anything on his lists I said to him:
“See here. We have been hunting rooms all day. We have been frustrated
from Mulberry Street to Fifteenth. I have got money and can give
references, but nobody seems to care about either. What is the matter?
Why can we not get into an Italian house?”
“Scoose me, mister, bot wye youse want to?”
“We want to live with Italians in order to learn to speak Italian
properly.”
“Yes, all ri—ght. I don’ know wye.” A shrug of the shoulders and a side
glance with dropped eyes. “Mebbe Eyetayun peoples sink-a youse try to
fin’ a out somesings, mebbe don’ a want somebodys fin’ youse. Youse
knows deys-a only dirty dagoes.”
This last was said with a bitterness which showed clearly how well the
Italians understand the tolerant, semi-contemptuous regard of Americans
towards them and how keenly they resent it. I understood at once how and
why they suspected us because we, who were obviously “Americans proper”
as they nicely express the difference between the native and imported
American, desired to come and make our home among them. Only a knowledge
that the persons are still living and a wholesome respect for the libel
law prevent me from telling how well founded were the suspicions among
the Italians of the “Americans proper” who lived about us later.
Thus, to begin with we were met by the barrier of suspicion and
misunderstanding raised against us by all our neighbors. We had to
overcome it carefully or do our work in spite of it.